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Why Omnicom (OMC) Stock Is Up Today

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Omnicom(OMC - Get Report) was gaining 0.5% to $66.52 Friday on news that it won't pursue a $35 billion merger with Publicis Groupe.

According to Bloomberg, the two advertising companies weren't able to overcome difficulties slowed down the proposed deal. The companies couldn't reach an agreement on how to share responsibility, Publicis chairman and CEO Marice Levy said in a conference call. The boards of both companies voted to end the merger with no termination fees.

TheStreet Ratings team rates OMNICOM GROUP as a Buy with a ratings score of A-. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate OMNICOM GROUP (OMC) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, reasonable valuation levels, growth in earnings per share, increase in stock price during the past year and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:

Despite its growing revenue, the company underperformed as compared with the industry average of 5.1%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly increased by 3.0%. This growth in revenue appears to have trickled down to the company's bottom line, improving the earnings per share.

OMNICOM GROUP's earnings per share improvement from the most recent quarter was slightly positive. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. We feel that this trend should continue. During the past fiscal year, OMNICOM GROUP increased its bottom line by earning $3.72 versus $3.61 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($4.08 versus $3.72).

The stock price has risen over the past year, but, despite its earnings growth and some other positive factors, it has underperformed the S&P 500 so far. Turning our attention to the future direction of the stock, it goes without saying that even the best stocks can fall in an overall down market. However, in any other environment, this stock still has good upside potential despite the fact that it has already risen in the past year.

Even though the current debt-to-equity ratio is 1.09, it is still below the industry average, suggesting that this level of debt is acceptable within the Media industry. Regardless of the somewhat mixed results with the debt-to-equity ratio, the company's quick ratio of 0.71 is weak.